24 Looking to build Credit... What are some good tips on your first Credit Card

[edshoecator]

never cosign for anyone even if its a family member.

 

[shorty doo wop]

After flourishing in the credit card game I thought I had amazing credit. Now that I lease my car my credit should improve alot more too since it's considered a bigger responsibility

 

[angels47]

is anybody else credit karma app messing up on the iphone?

i made a payment last billing cycle but its still showing my previous balance.

(i checked my native CC app and its updated but C.K. isnt)

CK probably just hasn't been given the update yet.

 

[scotchbinginton]

Prociate all the good advice on here. Old cat trying to fix some years of screw ups, wanted to know can I trust Credit Karma scores? By this I mean if someone say a mortgage lender ran my credit, could I be confident that the lender would come up with the same scores?

Again thanks for all the tips and advice, keep this going!

 

[jon4rd]

Prociate all the good advice on here. Old cat trying to fix some years of screw ups, wanted to know can I trust Credit Karma scores? By this I mean if someone say a mortgage lender ran my credit, could I be confident that the lender would come up with the same scores?

Again thanks for all the tips and advice, keep this going!

Nah not even close. Mortgage scores use FICO 04 models usually. Credit karma scores are vantage scores if I'm not mistaken. But they aren't true fico scores. Mortgage scores are usually lower than even the fico 8 scores

 

[scotchbinginton]

Nah not even close. Mortgage scores use FICO 04 models usually. Credit karma scores are vantage scores if I'm not mistaken. But they aren't true fico scores. Mortgage scores are usually lower than even the fico 8 scores

Good lookin out. Now is there somewhere I can go and get true scores, like the ones lenders would use?

 

[jon4rd]

Good lookin out. Now is there somewhere I can go and get true scores, like the ones lenders would use?

Myfico.com

Edit: you can get free fico 8 scores from a few different sites but to get mortgage fico scores (I was assuming that's what you were asking about) you likely have to pay for them and myfico is a really good site to get them. Let me know if you just want free fico 8 scores and I can give some suggestions

 

[scotchbinginton]

Myfico.com

Edit: you can get free fico 8 scores from a few different sites but to get mortgage fico scores (I was assuming that's what you were asking about) you likely have to pay for them and myfico is a really good site to get them. Let me know if you just want free fico 8 scores and I can give some suggestions

Yes definitely for mortgage fico. I was wondering if myfico was trustworthy, read some reviews and was still on the fence. Even thought about just having a lender run it, because the scores on Credit Karma jumped quite a bit and I just don't believe it, seems to good to be true. Don't get me wrong, scores are still crap but that was a helluva jump (45pts) in 30 days.

 

[capital sb]

MyFico is safe. Used them to track my mortgage score while I was buying a house

 

[superantigen]

Personally, i don't think it's necessary to pay to see your exact score. Credit Karma will give you a ballpark range, which is more than enough to know where your credit worthiness stands. For example, my CK score has habitually fluctuated between 790 and 801. Though it's not precise, it's enough to inform me that I will get a good rate on a loan when it comes time to borrow.

Interestingly enough, in March, I went to my bank to get pre-approved for a mortgage. The loan officer did a hard pull on my credit and my score came back, surprisingly, at 809. Relative to this true score, my CK score range was obviously underestimated, but in the grand scheme of things, did the difference matter? No, specifically because I was already in the "very good" range and knew I would get choice rates.

In the end, there's no need--imo--to pay to see your score. My advice is to just stick with the free options (CK, Discover, Cap1, etc). CK has always given me detailed and accurate information about my credit, and provided me with a useful ball park range of where my score stands, and that's been more than enough. Who you get your score from shouldn't even matter. What matters is you being smart about your spending habits and nursing your credit worthiness. If you do this, your score will show positively irrespective of the source that shows it to you.





...

 

[datznasty]

Usbank sent me back the letter creditrepair.com sent them. They aren't even sophisticated letters or legal/procedural challenges. It's basically begging and they dropship it using your address. IIRC last time I looked they had in fact removed it but they sent a letter back like "this seems like a credit repair agency letter attempt. Send more specific details about your account and why we should vacate the entry from your credit." So far I got 6 of 11 things total between all my bureaus removed though but I'm cancelling them. I think it was worth it for 2 months but like has been echoed here, even the freebies like CreditSesame and CreditKarma have a dispute option or used to I know I have used it before.

 

[sober thoughts]

never cosign for anyone even if its a family member.

This!!!!
It took me 4 years to fix what others f-up

 

[edshoecator]

Usbank sent me back the letter creditrepair.com sent them. They aren't even sophisticated letters or legal/procedural challenges. It's basically begging and they dropship it using your address. IIRC last time I looked they had in fact removed it but they sent a letter back like "this seems like a credit repair agency letter attempt. Send more specific details about your account and why we should vacate the entry from your credit." So far I got 6 of 11 things total between all my bureaus removed though but I'm cancelling them. I think it was worth it for 2 months but like has been echoed here, even the freebies like CreditSesame and CreditKarma have a dispute option or used to I know I have used it before.

just google dispute templates, copy and paste, and send them yourself.

 

[scotchbinginton]

MyFico is safe. Used them to track my mortgage score while I was buying a house

Word up prociate that!!

 

[scotchbinginton]

Personally, i don't think it's necessary to pay to see your exact score. Credit Karma will give you a ballpark range, which is more than enough to know where your credit worthiness stands. For example, my CK score has habitually fluctuated between 790 and 801. Though it's not precise, it's enough to inform me that I will get a good rate on a loan when it comes time to borrow.

Interestingly enough, in March, I went to my bank to get pre-approved for a mortgage. The loan officer did a hard pull on my credit and my score came back, surprisingly, at 809. Relative to this true score, my CK score range was obviously underestimated, but in the grand scheme of things, did the difference matter? No, specifically because I was already in the "very good" range and knew I would get choice rates.

In the end, there's no need--imo--to pay to see your score. My advice is to just stick with the free options (CK, Discover, Cap1, etc). CK has always given me detailed and accurate information about my credit, and provided me with a useful ball park range of where my score stands, and that's been more than enough. Who you get your score from shouldn't even matter. What matters is you being smart about your spending habits and nursing your credit worthiness. If you do this, your score will show positively irrespective of the source that shows it to you.





...

Thanks for that. It's slow and go but I am starting to see the fruits of my labor...

 

[d e beatup]

Need some advice from the NT gurus...

I've been working hard for well over the past year now to rebound my credit from the dumps. Long story short, got married when I was in my early 20s because we had a kid while still in college and it absolutely jacked my credit up. Had a repo in '08 and numerous defaulted cards that I gave the 7 years treatment. All my major issues fell off 1-2 years ago except for student loans, which will never go away smh. I've been on everything like a hawk and disputed the hell out of every inaccuracy (and some legit negatives) I could.



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This is where I stand as of today. After finding out I had another kid on the way, My spiteful baby moms put me on child support last year, despite the fact I had been paying her directly for 3 years with no missed payments. I never received any correspondence about the order and only noticed it when it showed on my credit report as an account in default. It literally took over 6 months to resolve it but as of yesterday they finally removed the inaccurate reporting of the account as 6 missed payments. I assume that the score will go up some more within the next 2 weeks because it's the exact same today as it was when it showed the missed payments.

My question is what can I do to really get into the upper 700s? My problem is that because my credit was in the 500s for so long I knew I couldn't apply for any new credit. I had an account with both PayPal and Walmart but both were immediately closed by Synchrony Bank as soon as I paid the accounts off (punished for doing the right thing). I literally only have a secured card I got from my credit union 5 yrs ago, Best Buy card 4 yrs ago and crappy Credit One card 3 yrs ago. Compounding that is that my student loans were individual ones per semester instead of one jumbo loan so after they went into default, they were resold and now I have 6 loans with an age of 1 year, along with the Child Support at 9 months which severely brings down my average age of credit history.

I want to apply for a new card to use and get rewards/mileage but I don't want to get a hard inquiry unless I'm 100% on approval and I'm done with the crappy poor score, high APR cards. Just curious if there's anything I'm missing at this point and should I wait to apply for a card once Equifax hits 700s

 

[capital sb]

If you are trying to buy a house. $30 one time is worth it. CC FICOs are are no where near mortgage or auto FICOs

 

[archiballer]

d e beatup

Do you have access of the means to join a credit union? Navy fed/penn fed something along those lines?

I don't see much wrong with that snapshot other than age of credit and if that's an average that's not that bad either.

 

[Ritchie X Rich]

@d e beatup  

Your credit report snapshot really isnt that bad at all. You have perfect payment history and no baddies. Utilization counts as one of the biggest percentage factors in your score. Even though you have a total of 17% utilization across all your accounts which isnt bad, do you have any individual credit cards with high utilization?  Start lowering your balances on specific cards cause that overall/total utlization can be deceiving because you can have 1 card with a high balance to limit ratio but low balances on the rest, so your total utilization may look good, but that one card thats close to the limit can kill your score. Lower some if you have any  and im sure you'll break 700. 

Btw, you have a lot of total accounts, are they mainly all cards?

 

[d e beatup]

Thanks for the input fellas. The secured card is through my Credit Union; I've had it since 2012. I just bought a PS4 last month using my Best Buy card. I hadn't used it in well over a year so I went that route instead of cash. The limit is only $500 so it put a high utilization on it. They had 12 months no interest financing but because my limit is so low I'm thinking of paying it down to $149 to get under 30% or just paying it in full.

I'm in a tough position because I can't afford to lose accounts due to length of history. I don't need the secured card anymore and I hate Credit One but I'll have virtually no history if I pull the plug so I'm stuck with them.

The high number of accounts is because they are counting loans in the process. Half of those accts are loans paid in good standing from the credit union, furniture store, TV purchase etc. while a good chunk is just my student loans being sold to different lenders. I've read the fine print and it appears there's nothing I can do about them selling the loans off. This has happened when I had great payment history and when I was in default. Each time they sell them the length of the accounts starts over and I lose the length/history.

 

[ASE]

Maybe you can consolidate those loans with a personal loan from a bigger bank or a balance transfer. That'll reduce the number of open accounts and reduce the increase in number of accounts if/when the loan is sold.

 

[agentorange]

Finally got approved for my first card. Feels good

 

[injennz]

I am 36 now and I got my first credit card at the age of 18 in college. It's the most absolute worst credit card you could get as Capital One preyed on young students. However I still have this Credit Card open till this day and have an auto charge of $9.99 a month and gets paid off. You never want to close your oldest credit card and keep it open. I was taught well by my parents and have excellent credit that ranges from 780-803 these past 7 years. It took me forever to break the 800 mark and it was a smile on my face when I did. I've applied and got things based on my great credit that most people wouldn't. So I'll say its very important in your future endeavors if you don't have an enormous cash flow to fund your purchases/investments.

 

[datznasty]

Does being put on child support really hurt your credit? And why?

 

[redd spyder]

Does being put on child support really hurt your credit? And why?

from my understanding its treated as a credit card statement and if you miss a payments it affects your score as such.